Joy Pott will read from her memoir Fitting the Pieces Together.

Joy is an educator, and writer, and was a longtime caregiver for her husband, Ron, as he battled Alzheimer’s disease. A native of Scotland, she came to the United States at 17. She lives outside Philadelphia and has summered in Castine for decades.

In Fitting the Pieces Together, Joy details the life she and Ron lived in “Alzheimer’s World.’’ It is a “love story, a mystery, an adventure –” a memoir filled with the snippets of joy, anxiety, fear, faith, hope, sadness, love and more that are all a part of living in and through that world.  This is not a “how-to’’ book, although it offers sometimes profound insights and, perhaps, guideposts, as Joy sorts her way through, from the initial diagnosis, to the inevitable, painfilled acknowledgement of mental and physical decline, and Ron’s eventual passing. She introduces the reader to the many people, groups and agencies she encountered along the way as well as the details, some small, other momentous, that define being a caregiver.

Although she claims not to be a `”real writer,’’ her story is powerful in its simple recounting of the experiences she and Ron shared together before and during his illness, and her efforts to continue to live a full life after his death.

Fitting the Pieces Together is a limited-edition publication (October 2023) and not available for sale. A copy is available for loan at the library.

Library Reading Room
Refreshments will be served.

Suggested Reading

Contented Dementia by Oliver James

On Pluto: Inside the Mind of Alzheimer’s by Greg O’Brien